‘We’ll get all the computers and stuff back to you soon as we can,’ Sellers said, once Upton had composed himself.
‘Please do. If it becomes possible to distract myself with work in the coming days, then I’d like to.’
Sellers inclined his head in the direction of Marianne’s empty study. ‘Do you know why your wife stripped her study bare?’ he asked.
Upton looked disorientated. ‘I … no,’ he said eventually.
Was he lying? Hard to tell. All Sellers could see was a mess of a man. Upton had a soft, round fleshy face, straw-like hair that stuck out in every direction, and a small, piggy squiggle of a nose. Together, these features might have given him a rather comical aspect if he hadn’t been so obviously distraught.Interestingly, Marianne had been attractive for a woman her age. Getting on for beautiful, even. Sellers looked again at her portrait: bow-shaped mouth, long slender neck, dark blue eyes. Why had she married a man who looked like the cuddly-toy version of a scarecrow? For his unquestioning obedience and devotion, perhaps.
‘I do know,’ Upton said.
‘Sorry?’ said Sellers.
‘Why Marianne destroyed her study. I do know why. I’m sorry, I wasn’t trying to mislead you. I thought you’d asked a different question. She was convinced that Jemma was trying to break into her room, invade her privacy. Please don’t think badly of Jemma. She wouldn’t normally think to snoop like that. She found Marianne … difficult.’
‘What was in there before?’ Sellers asked.
‘Nothing untoward,’ said Upton. ‘A little writing table, like the sort a Victorian lady might have had. Marianne called it her desk but that was my little joke: “Desk? Call that a desk?Thisis a desk.”’ He patted its glass surface. ‘I could never understand how she got by with something so dainty.’
‘You must have seen her study, then, and been inside it, if you saw her desk?’ said Sellers.
‘A couple of times, yes. If Marianne and I were the only ones home, she would sometimes leave her study door open, if she knew she’d be going in and out. And I mean, I wouldn’t have dreamed of setting foot over the threshold without an invitation. She knew that.’
‘What was in there, apart from the dainty desk?’ Sellers asked.
‘Other furniture. A chaise longue, chairs, a rug. Lamp, cushions. The shelves were stuffed with books, notebooks, photographs.’
Everything that’s missing from this room, then.
‘Where’s it all now?’
‘Clearabee took it all,’ Upton said. ‘They’re a company that comes and takes away anything you don’t want any more. She didn’t give them any of the personal stuff – the books or the photos. We squirrelled those away for safekeeping. Everything else went, though.’
‘Including the shelves,’ said Sellers. ‘And the carpet.’
Upton nodded.
‘Why? Marianne not wanting Jemma to see her personal possessions, books, photos – that makes sense, I guess, but removing shelves and the carpet seems a bit extreme.’
Upton sighed. ‘If you’d known Marianne, you’d understand. She saw every part of that room as hers, and for her only. Yes, even the carpet. On one level it was really only the photos she couldn’t risk Jemma seeing, but … all of it was her kingdom and she was determined to … protect it.’
By destroying it?Sellers was hardly about to argue that Marianne Upton couldn’t have been as crazy as that when her husband was calmly advising him to the contrary. Most people were bonkers in at least a few little ways, Sellers knew.
‘What did you want to tell me about her will?’ he asked Upton.
‘My wife has – had – a lot of wealth. You’re going to find out about her will, I expect, so I wanted to tell you before you do, and to urge you to … well, to disregard it. Nobody would kill a person for taking them out of their will, especially not when it happened so long ago, but even if they would, Jemma and Paddy have no idea. I’m the only one who knows, and I’m very much hoping that nothing about what’s happened here today means they need to find out it was ever any different from how it is now.’
Interesting.Sellers didn’t plan to disregard any of this.
‘Are you saying Marianne used to have a will in which Jemma and Paddy Stelling were beneficiaries, and then she changed it and cut them out?’ he asked.
Upton began to cry again, but there was a nod in there too. Confirmation.
Sellers waited.
‘Shortly after their marriage, she made a will. We both did. Mine’s the same now as it was then: Jemma and Lottie. Everything goes to them. But Marianne, who was worth significantly more than I am—’
‘What did she do again?’ Sellers asked.
